


Don't Stop Believing

by Briar_Rose7



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, I just don't know when, I promise, I will continue it, I'll add more specific tags once I've decided what exactly to do with this story, Vampire!Belle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 05:17:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7421446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Briar_Rose7/pseuds/Briar_Rose7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus Gold has troubles sleeping at night.<br/>An impossible encounter, however, will keep him even more awake than usual. </p>
<p>Also: have you ever read that prompt on tumblr about a vampire being so disgusted by an anemic's blood that they decide to help him? Well, here's my Rumbelle take on it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Stop Believing

**Author's Note:**

> I really really didn't have the time to write this, but I did it anyway. I'm a bad person.

Remus Gold laid motionless in his bed, willing himself to fall asleep but unable to do so. He stared at the ceiling and wished desperately for the oblivion that was eluding him every night more. He tried taking slow, deep breaths, forcing his mind to relax and forget, but nothing seemed to work as the hours ticked by.

Somehow, probably around two in the morning, he finally dozed off, only to be startled awake  soon after by a strange noise and a sting on the neck. 

Someone was coughing next to him.

“What the heck is this?”, said a hoarse female voice, and Remus nearly jumped out of his skin. In his bed there was a woman he’d never seen before. She startled when she realized he was awake too, and despite the dim light Gold was almost certain that her expression was one of fear.

“Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?”, he screamed, as he scrambled to get on his feet and gain an advantage position against his aggressor. 

“Wait, I can explain, please don’t call the police…”, she pleaded as he turned the lights on. They both squeezed their eyes shut at the sudden burst of light, but she seemed more affected by it than he was, almost recoiling from the light altogether. 

As his eyes slowly adjusted to the light, Remus took in the intruder. She was dressed in black from head to toe. Aside from that, she was absolutely nothing like he’d always imagined an intruder would be. She was petite, with surprisingly blue eyes and long brown hair that made a stark contrast against her extremely pale skin. 

“Please, don’t freak out, I can explain”, she repeated, and as she spoke he took in her extremely long and pointy canines, from which a drop of _something_ fell on his blankets, something that was red and horribly similar to blood.

Right on cue, he felt the sting on his neck again, and the penny finally dropped. 

The scream died on his tongue, because he honestly didn’t know what to scream for. To tell her to leave? To beg her to spare him? To ask her for an explanation that wasn’t as nonsensical as the one he’d come to? Somehow, his panicked brain was also hurriedly trying to remember what exactly could be used against someone, no, _something_ like her. 

“I didn’t mean to scare you”, she said weakly, and she looked so lost that he could have almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

“Sure, you didn’t mean to scare me, you were only trying to _kill_ me!”, he replied angrily. 

“I wasn’t! I was… I’m…”

“You’re a vampire”, he finished for her.

“Yes”.

Silence followed her answer, and in the years to come Gold never understood why he didn’t freak out a bit more at her admission. 

“I don’t… I never kill people. I take a little bit of blood and I guess they just get up in the morning feeling a bit tired. I’m not a monster”. She was hugging her knees, still sitting on his bed, and had he not been that shocked and afraid Gold would have laughed at the absurdity of the situation.

“Your blood tastes terribly, by the way”. With that single sentence, the vampire-girl had just skyrocketed the absurdity of the whole thing to the point that Remus felt the need to pinch his own arm to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. Unfortunately, he was pretty much awake.

“Excuse me? You come into my house in the middle of the night to feed on my blood and you even have the audacity to tell me that it tastes bad? Give me a phone call next night, so I’ll make sure to be as tasty as possible”, he replied bitterly, and she shook her head.

“No, I mean that it’s not _healthy_. Look, I’ve drank blood from endless people and I know that this can’t be a good sign. It’s literally the worst blood I’ve ever tasted. When was the last time you had a blood test? Maybe you’re anemic or-” 

“Or”, he interrupted her, “this is none of your business. I’ve honestly no interest in being told how to taste better.”

“But it’s a matter of _health_!”

“And I DON’T CARE!”, he shouted, and for a long moment she didn’t answer, staring at him with an intensity that eventually forced him to look away.

“Why?”, she asked simply.

“That’s none of your business”, he replied, his rage lost as the painful truth came back to his mind, his chest burning once again with a pain that he knew would never go away. 

“You’re right, it’s not, but at least let me give you a piece of advice. Every night I wake up and I wish I were alive. I wish my heart would beat normally, I wish I could feel the sun on my skin without getting burned, I wish I could stop sneaking around every other night in the desperate search of blood. I wish I could be a normal person and enjoy all those little things of life that we never value until we lose them. Life is precious, and we only have one. Don’t waste it”.

He didn’t know what to say. He looked at her, puzzled by her words and by the honesty and care she’d poured in them.

“You don’t even know me”.

“Neither do you, yet you’re still not trying to impale me on a wooden stake. You don’t need to know someone to show kindness to them.” 

“I’m not being kind, I’m just not trying to kill you. There’s a difference.”

“When you’re a vampire, the two things often coincide.”

“I’m sorry”, he said instinctively. She smiled at him.

“Thank you. I guess I should really be going now. I already caused you too much trouble, I shouldn’t be keeping you from sleeping, too.”

“I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. You’re not damaging me any way”.

“Maybe that’s why you taste so bad. Perhaps you should consider taking something for insomnia…”.

She realized halfway through her sentence that she was once again jabbering about his health. She stopped talking and for a second they looked at each other in silence as he smirked at her.

One moment later, they were laughing together. 

“Oh my God I’m so sorry. I did it again.”

“It’s no matter”, he said, and his eyes turned sad as he added “I can’t even remember the last time I laughed”.

Had the situation been different, Belle would have hugged him. Being a vampire, however, had taught her to be more closed off, and she wasn’t sure that he would have welcomed such an intimate gesture from a monster. 

“I’m sorry. Is there… is there something I can do for you? You know, I feel like I owe you after scaring you so much”.

“I wasn’t _that_ scared”. He was trying to change the topic, and Belle knew that much, but she accepted his quip without batting an eye or pressing the matter any further. He had every right to keep his own problems to himself. 

“Sure, and I’m not _that_ much of a vampire”, she teased back.

“Fine, I _was_ scared, even though I’m not really sure if I was more afraid of you being a vampire or of me being crazy for believing you”.

“Trust me, I didn’t believe it either until my friend shoved a knife into her own thigh without batting an eye. Then she showed me that I could do the same”. 

“That sounds a bit… over-the-top.”

“Well, she’s kind of impulsive and I was panicking, so I can see why she thought that was the best thing to do”.

Gold sat down next to her, and he suddenly realized something.

“I don’t know your name. Neither you know mine, I guess.”

“I’m Belle.”

“And I’m Remus”. They shook hands, and Belle smiled again.  

“Nice to meet you, Remus. I like your name, it’s not a common, boring one.”

“Neither is yours.”

“I guess”.

They sat in silence for a moment, while Remus debated whether to ask her a question or not. In the end, he decided to risk it. 

“May I ask you how you became a vampire?”. 

She tensed, her shoulders going stiff and her smile falling, but she nodded.

“It happened five years ago-” 

“Five years? I thought vampires were hundreds if not thousands of years old!”

“Well, they can be. _We_ can be. It just so happens that I’m not. Not yet, anyway.”

“Right, that was a silly question, go on”, he said.

“Well, I lived in Australia back then. I was coming back from a party with my friend when our car broke. It was late night and there was no one around. I got out to try to understand what the problem was. I can’t say that I really remember much of what happened later. I heard a car approaching and I was hoping we might get some help, but they swerved and hit me at full speed. After that, I only remember excruciating pain and my friend whispering ‘I’m sorry’. The people in the car didn’t even stop to help.”

Remus’ eyes were closed, his expression pained. 

“And when you woke up…”

“When I woke up I was in my friend’s house, and she was fussing over me and telling me to stay calm, that everything was fine, but I knew something was wrong. And, well, then came the aforementioned panic and thigh-stabbing.”

“She turned you into a vampire to save your life”.

He was looking at her now, with an expression she couldn’t decipher on his face. 

“Indeed. Assuming that this undead state can be called life.”

“And you… could you turn someone else?”. She looked at him in horror.

“What exactly are you saying?”

“No, I mean… does somebody have to be alive to be turned into a vampire?”.

There was something almost scary in his eyes, something between pain and hope and madness.

“Yes. The transformation only works if you’re still alive, even if barely. It can’t bring people back from the dead”. 

He slumped back against the headboard, that glint in his eyes gone. 

“Of course, I shouldn’t even have asked. I’m sorry.”

“It’s no matter.”

“I think you should go now. I need to sleep after all and you… you might need to feed again, maybe? Given the bad-tasting blood and the fact that I woke up”.

He was sending her away. Of course he was, what had she expected? That he’d ask her to stay and cook her breakfast in the morning, only to realize she didn’t need to eat it?

“Right”. She scrambled to her feet, feeling suddenly as lost and in danger as she’d felt when he’d discovered her. “I think you probably guessed it on your own, but I’d really like this encounter to remain secret”. 

_Please don’t be the one who sends the police after me._

“Of course. I won’t tell anyone”.

And by the look in his eyes, Belle was almost sure he was being honest. 

“So, how exactly are you getting out of here? I could open the door for you, of course, but I guess that’s not how you got in here, right?”

“The kitchen window. You left it open. You really shouldn’t do that, you know? It’s dangerous.”

“I live on the fifth floor!”

“And I’m not the only one who can climb a building, neither the most dangerous of those who can.”

She entered the kitchen, Gold following her awkwardly. He felt the need to speak but no words came to his mind.

“Goodbye, then”, she said with a sad smile as she put on the black sky mask she kept in her pocket.

“Goodbye”.

And in one last flash of black leather, she was gone.

  



End file.
